Christianity and the East India Company
A Letter, to the Chairman of the East India Company, on the Danger of Interfering in the Religious Opinions of the Natives of India [and nine other works].
8vo. Ten works with altogether 654 pp. Later 19th century blue cloth.
€ 8,500.00
A coherent sammelband of ten early 19th century pamphlets representing debates surrounding the propagation of Christianity under the East India Company.
Prior to the renewal of their charter in 1813, both the East India Company and Parliament, much to the consternation of prominent evangelicals (notably including William Wilberforce), had refused to countenance missionary activity in India and forbade religious education. This move was less religiously or morally motivated than pragmatic: a policy of religious neutrality was favoured on the basis that Christian evangelism might be seen as a threat by native Indians (though many religious groups thrived in the Subcontinent, most markedly Islam and Hinduism, it is predominantly Hindu conversion that is discussed). The East India Company's interests were primarily with this world, not the next, and its priorities simple and economic. If exposed to Christianity, native Indians may have felt threatened and thus would have posed a threat to British commercial ventures.
This stance was evidently not easily swallowed by the armchair evangelists of Britain: throughout this collection of pamphlets, an anonymous early owner - one evidently contemporary to the pamphlet publication - has pencilled in a wide range of insults towards the politicians and pamphlet authors who pushed the East India Company's religious neutrality; at one point English was no longer strong enough, and the furious marginalia writer resorted to quoting in Greek. That this reader was a contemporary owner, or perhaps even the one who commissioned the binding of this collection, is evident in their final note: "still blind though several years have past [sic] since your first pamphlet" (as a matter of fact, the author in question, Scott Waring, first appears in the volume with an 1808 pamphlet, five years earlier). Meanwhile, compared to many other British and generally European colonies of the time, India under East India Company rule had relatively little Christian missionary activity, and the Company regularly allied itself with or against various Muslim and Hindu rulers.
With the small bookplate of J. M. Strachan.
8vo (142 x 225 mm). Waring, Scott / Twining, Thomas. A Letter, to the Chairman of the East India Company, on the Danger of Interfering in the Religious Opinions of the Natives of India. London, J. Ridgway, 1807. 33, (1) pp.
(Bound with) II: Owen, John. An Address to the Chairman of the East India Company, Occasioned by Mr. Twining's Letter to that Gentleman. London, J. Hatchard, 1807. (4), 31, (1) pp.
III: Two Letters to the Proprietors of East India Stock, Occasioned by Mr. Twining's Late Letter to the Chairman. London, Williams & Smith, 1807. First edition. 20 pp.
IV: A Letter to the President of the Board of Control, on the Propagation of Christianity in India. London, J. Hatchard, 1807. First edition. 23, (1) pp.
V: Waring, Scott. A Letter to the Rev. John Owen, A.M., in Reply to the "Brief Strictures on the Preface to Observations on the Present State of the East India Company". London, J. Ridgway, 1808. First edition. (4), 118, (2) pp.
VI: Waring, Scott. Observations on the Present State of the East India Company. London, James Ridgway, 1808. LXXVI, 76 pp.
VII: [Owen, John]. A Letter to John Scott Waring, Esq., in Refutation of his "Observations on the Present State of the East India Company...". London, Ellerton & Byworth, 1808. First edition. (4), 82 pp.
VIII: [Teignmouth, Charles John Shore]. Considerations on the Practicability, Policy, and Obligation of Communicating to the Natives of India the Knowledge of Christianity. London, John Hatchard, 1808. First edition. VII, (1), 101, (1) pp.
IX: Weyland, John. Letter to Sir Hugh Inglis, Bart., Late Chairman of the East India Company, on the State of Religion in India. Windsor, C. Knight & Son, 1813. First edition. (2), 26 pp.
X: Waring, Scott. Remarks on Mr. Weyland's Letter to Sir Hugh Inglis, Bart., on the State of Religion in India. London, J. Ridgway, 1813. First edition. (2), 38 pp. Later 19th century full blue cloth with gilt title to spine.
Contemporary marginal commentary in pencil. Very minor paper repairs, a few instances of toning; in very good condition.
